Sorry about that little misunderstanding of you main point. Though, going over it again, I just made a connection (almost a minor epihany) as to why it's all the more common words that are more irregular as far as spelling goes.
According to my basic understanding of the roots of Modern English, English draws from Old English, French, and Latin primarily. As you mentioned before, written and spoken French are so dramatically different pronunciation-wise. So it stands to reason that some of that lengual(sp?) tradition carried over. As far as percentages go I'd wager that the and French rooted words make up a good percentage of the words in most people's everyday vocabulary with Old English being very close.
Thankfully there's that base of Old English there as well that has more logical pronunciation with words like "good", "bad", and so on. Plus the more "complicated" words like "decapitation" have Latin roots and are easy to sound out. Otherwise, I think there would be a *lot* more problems with words not seeming to match up to a logical spelling.:-)
Thanks for mentioning the posessive pronouns. I forgot about them. Though, in a sense, they're almost a category of their own... almost.
As for possesive forms of names, I usually just take the shortcut of using adjetival(sp?.. if it's even a word) prepositional phrases (i.e. the suffering of Jesus). It keeps me safe from the grammar police:-)
I have to unfortuenately agree with you on the bit about the degradation in spelling and usage, especially with the homophones. I'll admit that I do the same as far as text messaging goes, especially the homophones, but I think it has something to do with typing the sound of my internal monologue as opposed to typing out "word glyphs" and looking at what I type on the screen (my habit of looking down at the keyboard occasionally, while typing probably doesn't help either). Also, texting is fast-paced and less formal to the point that most errors in grammar that are overlooked unless the error is extreme enough to cause confusion as to the meaning.
However, I personally draw the line at more "permanent" forms of comminication like postings, e-mails, etc. I can't hazard a guess as to how a generation of "texting teens" will affect the future of the language though. I don't think it will be a huge or lasting one. Though, if "LOL" makes it into any standard dictionary, we might be in trouble:-P
Rules for showing possession aren't that complicated people.:-)
You only have to ask 2 questions: 1) Is this a this word singular or plural? 2) Does this word already end in 's'?
1) Singular 2) No Result: add " 's " to the end of the word Example: My dog's squeek toy is gross. (pronounced like "dogs")
1) Singular 2) Yes Result: add " 's " to the end of the word Example: Mr. Jones's pen is leaking. (pronounced like "Joneses", sort of a redundant 's' sound)
1) Plural 2) No Result: add " 's " to the end of the word Example: The alumni's party bus was missing. (pronounced like "alumneyes") Note: This is naturally somewhat rare since we don't tend to have many words in English that are not pluralized by adding 's'.
1) Plural 2) Yes Result: add " ' " to the end of the word Example: The Jones' House is a mile down the road. (pronounced like "Jones", no redundant 's' sound)
As you can see, you're safe most (roughly 75%) of the time with adding " 's ", just don't forget the exception because it is important. It shows that the word is possessive *and* plural as adding " 's " would signify it as being singular (i.e. The Jones's pen is owned by "The Jones"... as was pointed out in the previous post).
This post is dedicated to grammar instructors and grammar police everywhere:-).
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Sorry about that little misunderstanding of you main point. Though, going over it again, I just made a connection (almost a minor epihany) as to why it's all the more common words that are more irregular as far as spelling goes.
:-)
According to my basic understanding of the roots of Modern English, English draws from Old English, French, and Latin primarily. As you mentioned before, written and spoken French are so dramatically different pronunciation-wise. So it stands to reason that some of that lengual(sp?) tradition carried over. As far as percentages go I'd wager that the and French rooted words make up a good percentage of the words in most people's everyday vocabulary with Old English being very close.
Thankfully there's that base of Old English there as well that has more logical pronunciation with words like "good", "bad", and so on. Plus the more "complicated" words like "decapitation" have Latin roots and are easy to sound out. Otherwise, I think there would be a *lot* more problems with words not seeming to match up to a logical spelling.
Thanks for mentioning the posessive pronouns. I forgot about them. Though, in a sense, they're almost a category of their own ... almost.
As for possesive forms of names, I usually just take the shortcut of using adjetival(sp? .. if it's even a word) prepositional phrases (i.e. the suffering of Jesus). It keeps me safe from the grammar police :-)
I have to unfortuenately agree with you on the bit about the degradation in spelling and usage, especially with the homophones. I'll admit that I do the same as far as text messaging goes, especially the homophones, but I think it has something to do with typing the sound of my internal monologue as opposed to typing out "word glyphs" and looking at what I type on the screen (my habit of looking down at the keyboard occasionally, while typing probably doesn't help either). Also, texting is fast-paced and less formal to the point that most errors in grammar that are overlooked unless the error is extreme enough to cause confusion as to the meaning.
:-P
However, I personally draw the line at more "permanent" forms of comminication like postings, e-mails, etc. I can't hazard a guess as to how a generation of "texting teens" will affect the future of the language though. I don't think it will be a huge or lasting one. Though, if "LOL" makes it into any standard dictionary, we might be in trouble
Rules for showing possession aren't that complicated people. :-)
... as was pointed out in the previous post).
:-).
You only have to ask 2 questions:
1) Is this a this word singular or plural?
2) Does this word already end in 's'?
1) Singular
2) No
Result: add " 's " to the end of the word
Example: My dog's squeek toy is gross. (pronounced like "dogs")
1) Singular
2) Yes
Result: add " 's " to the end of the word
Example: Mr. Jones's pen is leaking. (pronounced like "Joneses", sort of a redundant 's' sound)
1) Plural
2) No
Result: add " 's " to the end of the word
Example: The alumni's party bus was missing. (pronounced like "alumneyes")
Note: This is naturally somewhat rare since we don't tend to have many words in English that are not pluralized by adding 's'.
1) Plural
2) Yes
Result: add " ' " to the end of the word
Example: The Jones' House is a mile down the road. (pronounced like "Jones", no redundant 's' sound)
As you can see, you're safe most (roughly 75%) of the time with adding " 's ", just don't forget the exception because it is important. It shows that the word is possessive *and* plural as adding " 's " would signify it as being singular (i.e. The Jones's pen is owned by "The Jones"
This post is dedicated to grammar instructors and grammar police everywhere